Lantern Poem

copyright 2014, Joy Acey

Wild
wart hogs
trot around
the water hole
run


    The form of this poem is a lantern or lanterne.  I like to think of it as a half cinquain.  It has five lines like a cinquain, but each line has half as many syllables.  So there is one syllable in the first line, then 2,3,4, and 1 syllable in each of the next lines.  This form is difficult because word choice is heavily favored for one syllable words.  Thus the scope of the poem is very limited.  The lantern has fewer words than a haiku.  Plus starting and ending with just one word lines is difficult.  How do you think I did in writing this one?  Now it is your turn to try.
   My friend David Harrison has a poem challenge this month using the word evergreen.  You can find poems using this word on his blog at www.davidlharrison.wordpress.com

So let's see if I can do this, writing a lantern using evergreen.  Since evergreen is a three syllable word, I'll need to split it into two words.  An evergreen is a tree, so I'll use that for my first word.  Now all I need to do is fill in the middle.

Tree
growing
stretching tall
standing ever
green

This is my first draft.  But looking at this, I think if I change this to a pine tree, I can do more.

Pine
growing
loblolly
stretching ever
green

    Have fun trying to write your own lantern poem.